1. Architecture Recommendations
   • Limit content database size to enhance manageability
   • Configure autogrowth settings
2. Physical Storage Recommendations
   • Separate and prioritize your data among disks
   • Use multiple data files for large content databases and the SSP search database
     • Use multiple data files for content databases
     • Use multiple data files for the SSP search database
3. SQL Server recommended practices

Blog do Ezequiel wrote a great article that details all of the above. I’ve simply summarized the key points above, but I encourage you to read his post in length. Microsoft has also published some useful resources on this topic (which Ezequiel talks about). I find the following link to be particularly useful:

Planning and Monitoring SQL Server Storage for Office SharePoint Server: Performance Recommendations and Best Practices (white paper)

If anyone has any recommendations for other useful resources pertaining to this topic, please let me know and I’ll include it above and credit your contribution.

SSEE, or SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition, is the database that’s installed with a stand-alone configuration of WSS 3.0. SSEE is just an alternative name for Windows Internal Database. The following is directly from Wikipedia:

“Windows Internal Database is an alternative name for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition (SSEE). The term is used in the documentation for such applications as Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Windows Server Update Services 3.0 and Windows Server 2008, where it is installed as a back-end database. SQL Server Embedded Edition is just a specially configured named instance of the SQL Server Express database engine which can be accessed only by certain Windows Services, or by SQL Server Management Studio Express using \\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query as server name.”

That clarified a lot for me. If you’ve got SSEE installed in a WSS 3.0 configuration and you’d like to get access to the databases on that server (be careful when making any changes though!), you’ll need to download SQL Server Management Studio Express from here.

Windows Internal Database DOES NOT have any database size limitations.

Once it’s been dowloaded and installed, launch management studio and in the place of server name, put:

\\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query

That should do it, you should now see your WSS 3.0 databases.

When MOSS is deployed using the Basic option, SQL Express 2005 gets installed.

SQL Express 2005 DOES have a database size limitation of 4GB.